Conventionally, an information processing device is widely available that stores data in which keywords and contents are associated with each other, and upon receipt of an input of a keyword, outputs a content corresponding to the keyword.
A typical example of such an information processing device is an electronic dictionary. Another example of such an information processing device is a translation device that stores example sentence data in which a plurality of example sentences described in different languages and having a corresponding content to each other are associated, and when a user selects an example sentence in a certain language, displays an example sentence in another language corresponding to the selected example sentence (hereinafter called a translation), based on the example sentence data.
For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 9-251462 (Patent Document 1) discloses a translation device in which each example sentence includes a replaceable word (variable section), and when a variable section in an example sentence is changed, a variable section in a translation corresponding to the changed variable section is changed in accordance with the change in the example sentence. The translation device described in Patent Document 1 detects a semantic feature from an input sentence input by a user on a handwriting input board with a dedicated pen, detects a fixed format sentence based on the semantic feature, and replaces a variable semantic feature in the fixed format sentence for display. When displaying words as candidates to replace a variable section, the translation device described in Patent Document 1 classifies the words and displays them in a hierarchical structure.